Bull God Read online

  “It must be so. He is too dangerous. Even the metal gates may not be strong enough. He could break free—”

  “Underground?” Ariadne cried. “No. No. You can't mean to imprison the Minotaur underground. He's afraid of the dark.”

  “Where else can he be kept safely?” Minos asked bitterly. “Nine men and a woman are dead. My men are scouring the palace and grounds for the condemned prisoners he let free. This tale can't be kept from the people. Too many saw. Too many were hurt. I can only tell them that the queen and I were at fault for keeping him here in Crete when he wished to join his father Poseidon and the other gods. Now, I'll say, we've let him go and he won't be seen again, except when he himself pleases to come. But how else can he truly be confined, except underground?”

  “In my maze,” Daidalos said, and described it. “He won't break free because he'll never find a door to break, and the walls, if broken, will lead only into other passages. I tell you I can't build the underground prison you desire.”

  “And I'll not suffer it,” Ariadne cried. “No! He didn't kill apurpose. Something drove him to burst the doors and after that what happened was accident. He pushed people out of his way. He tried to stop them and ask a question.”

  “Are you trying to say the Minotaur doesn't need confinement?” Minos shouted.

  Ariadne closed her eyes and then opened them to look at what remained of the doors. One of the bronze hinges was bent with the force the Minotaur had applied.

  “No,” she sighed. “Oh no. But not underground, King Minos. What's wrong with Master Daidalos' plan to build a maze so the Minotaur can find no door to batter down? This would even be a kindness and a kind of assurance, he'll be quiet because he'll never feel caged like a beast. He won't constantly be driven to seek escape by terror of the dark nor roused to fury by being imprisoned.”

  Minos gnawed his lower lip, his brows knitted as he thought hard, but after a moment the expression of rage that had distorted his face began to return.

  “Have mercy, King Minos,” Ariadne pleaded. Tears came to her eyes and ran down her cheeks unchecked. She held her hands toward him, palms up, almost as if praying. “I beg you to remember that he's only a little boy. Don't command that his prison be built under the earth. Don't keep him in the dark.” Sobs broke her voice. “Let there be little open places where the sun can come, where flowers grow. Put pictures on the walls so there's something to take his eye, to interest him. He likes pictures.”

  Minos turned away without replying, but his rigid stance had softened. His shoulders slumped.

  “And who will change the pictures?” Daidalos muttered sourly.

  “There will be no need,” Ariadne whispered. “He doesn't remember. They'll be new to him each time he sees them and give him a little pleasure. He's only eight years old... .”

  She began to cry so hard that her voice was suspended, and she covered her face, rocking a little in her grief for the child who would never grow up, who would be forever alone. A hand touched her shoulder gently.

  “I'll see to the pictures myself, I promise you,” Daidalos' son, Icarus, said softly.

  “Eight years old ...” Minos muttered. “I'd forgotten. It seems like eight thousand years since he was born.”

  “To me also,” Ariadne sobbed, “and the fault is mostly the queen's. I beg you, don't punish the Minotaur because she can't be punished.”

  Minos stiffened. “You think she's not punished?” he asked harshly.

  He loves her still, Ariadne thought, and her heart contracted with sympathy—and a little envy, too. “Perhaps she is,” Ariadne said softly.

  There was a sound from the corridor, which had been as silent as the tomb it had become. Two men, looking around fearfully, with guards, equally fearful, behind them, crept into the chamber across the corridor and came out carrying the limp body of the courtesan.

  The king drew a deep breath and looked from Ariadne to Daidalos. “Very well,” he said. “On your heads be it. You, artificer, finish your maze. You, priestess, get the beast into it and see he stays there.” He walked quickly to the doorway and promptly slammed into the invisible wall.

  There was a choked sound from Daidalos, but his eyes widened when he saw Minos' expression; he touched the wall and said hastily, “Thialuo kleithron.” And then to Minos, “The door's open.”

  The king stalked out, and Daidalos stood staring after him, his face momentarily twisted with hatred and despair. “He thinks I'm lazy and unwilling,” Daidalos said bitterly. “I'd see to it all if I had the power. I haven't. I have the art, but I haven't the power.” He whipped around, turning on Ariadne. “Have you? Have you the power to seal off an open maze?”

  Ariadne didn't answer, and Icarus came between them and laid his hand on his father's shoulder, steering him toward the doorway.

  “One moment,” Ariadne called. “To whom will the spell on the door respond? And what are the commands?”

  “It's the same spell as on the temple doorway, except it has no tie with the mage lights. Do you think it so easy to invent new spells? It's not, so I'll use it again to seal off the maze. Because it was first designed that way, it will respond to Phaidra, to you, and, of course, to me. You heard the words to open. Epikaloumai kleithron will relock the doorway.”

  Daidalos and Icarus went out and Ariadne stood staring into nothing. She didn't believe she had power enough to seal the maze, but she knew where such power could be had. However, if she asked Dionysus to provide the power, he would know that the Minotaur was locked away behind it. Would he demand this time that she go to live in Olympus? And would the Mother, knowing the Minotaur was safe, release her from Knossos? Could she bear to go, to live in Dionysus' house as ... as what?

  Ariadne had never seen the Olympian reaction to Dionysus when she wasn't with him. She had no idea how isolated he was, how rejection tainted the very air around him, even with those who liked him. She told herself that in Olympus he didn't need a priestess or a Mouth. And her recurrent nightmare invaded her waking thoughts. Could she bear to see other women taken into his bed and not be allowed to touch him herself? And who would she be in Olympus? There was more of Pasiphae in Ariadne than she liked. Here in Knossos she was of importance; in Olympus—

  She was happy enough to abandon those thoughts when a thump drew her attention to the invisibly blocked doorway. A guard with a stunned expression on his face was pushing his hands against nothing, and the nothing was not yielding a finger's width. Behind the guard was the surviving woman of the group that had been condemned to be the Minotaur's servants and one of the men. One new woman, an aged harridan, and two new men followed.

  Ariadne walked forward and spelled the door open. In the time before the Minotaur returned, she learned from the old servants what had driven the Minotaur to burst the doors and made clear to the new what were their duties and what would befall them if they failed. They knew the terms already—service with the Minotaur or execution.

  She saw the two new men eyeing the gate with scarcely concealed interest, and she laughed and continued, “I'm sure none of you will attempt to go into the temple, and I assure you the stair and passage go nowhere else. Clea,” she said to the surviving female servant, “tell them what happened to the last man who thought he could escape that way.”

  The woman, who had abducted, tortured, and forced into prostitution many innocent girls, and who had slit the throats of her victims when they were no longer useful, paled. “The Minotaur tore off his head—and ate him,” she whispered. She was known in the criminal world; the men didn't doubt her word and were infected by her fear.

  Not long afterward, the Minotaur came up the stairs and into the room. Ariadne spoke the words of command; the lights went out; the gate snicked shut; no one looked toward it longingly. The new men and the woman shrank back, away from the huge figure, from the wide mouth with its unsuitable predator's fangs, but the Minotaur paid no attention to them.

  “Ridne!” he exclaimed. “Where Feda?
”

  Ariadne sighed softly. He didn't remember that only a little time ago she had told him Phaidra had hurt her foot. She repeated the false explanation of her sister's absence.

  “Ridne tell why only priests? No pro ... pro . . . people with offerings.”

  For a moment Ariadne was struck mute. She could think of no way of explaining what he'd done. There was too much of a chance that he would enjoy hearing of the havoc he'd wrought. Then she realized she could use a part of the truth.

  “You left your apartment,” she said. “The people thought you wouldn't come to the temple, so they didn't come either.”

  He only shrugged, and Ariadne recalled that he'd never much liked the processions of people bringing offerings and had no awareness of their value. It was too bad that the lack of procession wouldn't combat his desire to go out, but at least she'd done no harm. Then she saw his eye fix on the open door, and he started toward it.

  “Out,” he said.

  “No.” Ariadne hurried along with him, caught his hand in hers and pressed it against the nothingness, which was smooth but hard as stone. “It's like the temple doorway. No one except Feda and Ridne can go in and out. But see, you can watch the servants and others go by in the corridor. That will be more interesting than a wooden door.”

  “Say something?”

  Ariadne drew a breath and swallowed. “No, love, because you're a god, and they're all afraid to speak to a god.”

  Conversation between the Minotaur and any passers by wouldn't please Minos or Pasiphae, she thought. Anyone who spoke even a few words to him would soon realize that the poor creature was feeble-minded. Hastily, she distracted him by suggesting that it was time for a meal. Going to the doorway, she called aloud and a guard who was standing beside the wall, out of sight, responded. He went down the corridor to the room at the end where the meat was prepared.

  When Ariadne had seen the Minotaur contentedly eating his dinner and the servants, silent and resigned, at their own end of the room, she rose from the stool she had been sitting on. “I must go and see how Phaidra's foot is,” she said. “I told you before that she hurt her foot and could not come to you today.”

  The Minotaur looked up. “Love Ridne more,” he said. “Ridne kiss, stroke. Ridne tell story. Story?” he asked. “Puh ... puh-lease, story?”

  She swallowed tears. It seemed all she did in his presence was cry, but soon he would be locked away. Would she be able to tell him stories? “Bring me a picture,” she said, sitting down again.

  He came back with a panel showing a group of young women playing a game, and Ariadne told him that the girls had brought their washing to the water and laid it on the bushes to dry in the sun. While they waited, she said, some talked together—she pointed to three figures seated to one side—and the others played.

  The Minotaur cocked his head to see the group clearly. Then he said, “Outside—” pointing to the open doorway. “Why run away? Why fall down?” He hesitated, then added, “Minotaur ugly.”

  “No,” Ariadne cried, jumping up and silently cursing his erratic and faulty memory that always brought back the wrong thing. “No, you aren't ugly. You're different from other men, but in your own way you're very beautiful, Minotaur. You are also very large and your voice is very loud. People are afraid. If you stand still and talk softly, as you do to me ...”

  However, she couldn't promise him anyone would talk to him or that they wouldn't run away, even with the magic gate between them. Too many knew of the dead and injured. The terrible tragedy of his life rose up and almost overwhelmed her. But for his sake she swallowed down the lump in her throat and fought her tears, leaning forward and pressing her lips to his forehead between the horns, stroking his fur.

  “I must go now, Minotaur,” she managed to say, and for fear he would hear her, didn't permit herself to weep aloud until she was well up Gypsades Hill.

  She was still weeping when Dionysus appeared as usual to share his evening meal with her. He stopped, shocked by her appearance. Her eyes were swollen nearly shut and her sobs were hoarse with exhaustion. He didn't ask her what was wrong, only hurried across the room to her, took her in his arms, and held her.

  “The Minotaur broke loose this morning,” she said, hiccuping a little and resting wearily against his shoulder.

  The whole tale followed: the Minotaur's desire to be free of his apartment, the courtesan's seduction of the guards, his breaking open the doors.

  “They were double barred with beams a handspan thick, and he burst them into splinters and bent the bronze hinges. He killed nine men and a woman, most by accident because he grasped them too hard to stop them from running away or because he pushed them so hard they broke against a wall. To still the cry of monster and false god, my father is putting out the tale that the Bull God resented the oaths that bound him to Knossos and wreaked this havoc as a punishment for being held here against his will.”

  “So he's to be imprisoned more securely,” Dionysus said, with a flash of the uncanny perception that came to him even when he had no Vision. He shivered. He needed to run free himself and understood. “Poor creature.”

  “I should have done what you bade me! I should have stopped his heart when he was first born,” she cried, and began to weep again.

  He shook his head, stroked her hair. “I think now it wouldn't have worked. I think She—” he gestured with his head to the wall behind which the dark image stood “—wouldn't have let him die.” Her sobs eased and he smiled at her. “So what's decided? I won't have you weeping forever. You get me all damp. If I can make his fate easier, I will.”

  Ariadne sat up straighter, hope rising. If Dionysus would power Daidalos' spells, the open maze would be possible. The silver mist had brought her knowledge of his own horror of confinement, so she told him of her father's plan to make the prison underground and how Daidalos offered instead a maze.

  Because Dionysus' horror only increased at the thought of being trapped in a maze, Ariadne said gently, “For the Minotaur, that would be wonderful. He hardly can remember anything, so each time he goes 'outside' it will be new to him and he can wander about until he finds a garden. But Daidalos hasn't the power to seal it, so it will have to be roofed and it will be dark and no flowers will grow ...”

  “Seal it?”

  She explained what Daidalos had described and begun building: at the center, two chambers, exactly like the ones the Minotaur had now. Likely he would never know he'd been moved. These would have, as they had now, two exits, but instead of being closed to imprison him, the doorways would open into passages that would loop and intersect. A few of these would be real, but most would be illusions. The illusions would lead either back to his apartment or to one of the small gardens to the right and left of his rooms.

  “He'll be happy there,” Ariadne insisted. She sighed. “His mind is failing more and more. A few places would be enlarged into rough chambers and roofed as shelter from the rain, but all the rest would be open to the sky. He'll never know he's bound to a maze. And while he can still remember anything, he'll be able to go to the temple. There will be a passage, looking like the one he now uses, only much shorter, that will be hidden by an illusion which can be dispelled. To him there will be infinite variety.”

  Dionysus nodded slowly. “A beast wouldn't realize he was imprisoned in such a place. Even the little fauns I keep in my garden—they aren't very clever—would probably be content.”

  “Daidalos says that the illusions don't use much power. They can be renewed at intervals, perhaps once a month. The problem is that the Minotaur is still growing. The Mother alone knows whether he'll some day top the walls. There must be a seal over them, but such seals take more power than Daidalos can provide. I can do the doors and the lights now, but I don't think I have enough strength to seal the maze.”

  “Not if you must support Daidalos' spell. That's a poor, clumsy thing.” He fell silent, frowning slightly, then said slowly, “Hekate could weave a spell and bind i
t to the very earth ...” He fell silent, his brow furrowed.

  “Oh, I know you don't want to ask her because she's done so much for you already,” Ariadne said. “And it would seem coarse and ugly to ask a favor right after going so far to help her. But would she listen to me if I prayed to her? Sacrificed to her? Would she pity my poor brother?”

  “I have no idea,” Dionysus said. “Hekate is very strange. I've known her since I was a young boy, but I don't know her. She kept me sane when I was tormented by Visions, so many and so close together that I lost touch with what was real and what was Seeing. And she came all the way back to fetch me after she had arrived at Olympus and discovered I was Zeus's son. But I have no idea why.”

  Ariadne smiled although a bitter pang pierced her chest. “Because she loves you, Dionysus.”

  “Oh no,” he said. “She loves only the black dog Kabeiros. More likely she brought me here to torment Zeus. But I don't know why she would wish to do that; she's not one to torment others, although sometimes she laughs at things that make my blood run cold. Still, Hekate knows a magic that's beyond Olympian Gifts. I don't mind asking her to help us. That's not why I hesitated. I was just trying to think of a way to catch her interest.”

  By then the hope that Dionysus had given her and her own conviction that the Minotaur would be better off in the maze than imprisoned in his two rooms had restored Ariadne. She went and washed her face, ordered a meal to be brought, and combed her hair. As she smoothed the locks of consecration around her finger, she felt someone pat her back as if encouraging her. She spun about, thinking Dionysus had come into the bedchamber and hoping that pity had at last spurred him to comfort her with love—but there was no one there.

  Ariadne put down the comb and went to stand before the statue. “I try to obey,” she whispered, “but it's very hard not to grieve for my poor brother's pain.”